In general I agree with these changes, I also think that the new curation reward scheme will make it more fun to vote, people will have to decide when to vote... 15 minutes, 19.. whoever is willing to "lose" the most will go first.. this is the kind of feature that gets people hooked, brilliant!
Our goal was to make voting fair for those who don't pay attention to the rules and just vote in the moment. At the same time we wanted to make voting a game for bot operators with advanced AI. The complex interactions between normal voters providing organic votes and vote speculators placing strategic votes should give something for everyone.